'n •t

OPUO.l!D O!.IaA!IO
Oliverio Girondo

S,Qre,row
&
other ""omQliel

A Xenos DuaI-Language Edition

translated from the Spanish by

Gilbert AIter-Gilbert

with an anti-preface by

Karl August K vitko

"XENOS F300Kc:::5
 Original texts © Herederos Sucesión Oliverio Girondo
Contact: Susana. Lange de Maggi susyfjord@tutopia.com

English translation © 2002 by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert

All rights reserved

This Xenos Books publication was made possible by a gift

from the Sonia Raiziss-Giop Charitable Foundation.

Front cover art: Alfredo Castañeda, "Cuando el espejo sueña con otra
imagen" (1988), reproduced with permissionfrom The Bonino Gallery,
New York, New York.

Back cover: Oliverio Girando, Espanatapájaros (1932); photograph

courtesy of El Museo de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.

Frontispiece: Portrait of Oliverio Girondo, drawing by Carlos Alonso

(1970), reproduced witñ the permission 01 the artist.

Book design by Karl Kvitko

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieation Data

Girondo, Oliverio, 1891-1967.

[Seleetions, English & Spanish, 2002]
Seareerow & other anomalies / Oliverio Girondo ; translated from
the Spanish by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert with an anti-prefaee by Karl
August Kvitko.
p.em.
"Xenos dual-language ed."
Ineludes bibliographie referenees.
ISBN 1-879378-21-3 (pbk.)
1. Girondo, Oliverio, 1891-1967--Translations into English.
l. Title: Seareerow & other anomalies. 11. Alter-Gilbert, Gilbert_
111. T i t le,
PQ7797.G535 A23 2001
861~.62--de21
2001026983

Published by Xenos Books, P.O. Box 52152, Riverside, CA 92517.

Tel. (909) 370-2229. Website: www.xenosbooks.com.Printed in USA
by Van Volumes Ltd., Three Rivers, MA 01080
 ,
ESPANTAPAJAROS
SCARECROW
(al alcance de todos)
Accessible To Al!
 Yo no sé nada I know nothing
Tú no sabes nada You know nothing
Ud. no sabe nada Thou knowest nothing
Él no sabe nada He knows nothing
Ellos no saben nada Men know nothing
Ellas no saben nada Women know nothing
Uds. no saben nada You all know nothing
Nosotros no sabemos nada. None of us knows anything at all.

La desorientación de mi generación tiene su explicación en la
dirección de nuestra educación, cuya idealización de la acción,
era -¡sin discusión! - una mistificación, en contradicción con
nuestra propensión a la meditación, a la
contemplación y a la masturbación.
The disorientation of my generation has its explanation
in the direction of our education, whose idealization
of action, was - without question! - a mystification,
in distinction to our passion for meditation,
contemplation and masturbation.

(Gutural, lo más guturalmente (Guttural, as guttural as can be.)

que se pueda.) Creo que creo I believe 1 believe in that which
en lo que creo que no creo. I believe 1 do not believe.
y creo que no creo en And 1 believe I don't believe
lo que creo que creo. in what 1 believe I believe.
"Song of the froggies"
«Cantar de las ranas»
A A Is Is A A
¡Y ¡Y ¿A¿A ¡Y ¡Y nd nd it it nd nd
su ba llí llá su ba a be th thi a be
bo jo es es bo jo bove low ere ther bove low
las las tá? tá? las las the the ? ? the the
es es ¡A ¡A es es stair lad It It stair lad
ea ea quí cá ea ea ways ders is is ways ders
le le no no le le climb cur n't n't climb cur
ras ras es es ras ras ing ving he hi ing ving
arri aba tá tá arri aba over under re ther over under
ba!. .. jo!. . . !.. . !. .. ba!... jo!. .. head! neath! ! ! head! neath!

[4} [5}
Jamás se había oído el menor roce de cadenas. Las botellas no
manifestaban ningún deseo de incorporarse. Al día siguiente de
colocar un botón sobre una mesa, se le encontraba en el mismo
sitio. El vino y los retratos envejecían con dignidad. Era
posible afeitarse ante cualquier espejo, sin que se rasgara a la
altura de la carótida; pero bastaba que un invitado tocase la
campanilla y penetrara en el vestíbulo, para que cometiese los
más grandes descuidos; alguna de esas distracciones imper-
donables, que pueden conducirnos hasta el suicidio.
En el acto de entregar su tarjeta, por ejemplo, los visitantes se
sacaban los pantalones, y antes de ser introducidos en el salón
se subían hasta el ombligo los faldones de la camisa. Al ir a
saludar a la dueña de casa, una fuerza irresistible los obligaba a
sonars~ las narices con los visillos, y al querer preguntarle por
su mando, le preguntaban por sus dientes postizos. A pesar de
un enorme esfuerzo de voluntad, nadie llegaba a dominar la
tentación de repetir: "Cuernos de vaca", si alguien se refería a
las señoritas de la casa, y cuando éstas ofrecían una taza de té,
los invitados se colgaban de las arañas, para reprimir el deseo de
morderles las pantorrillas.
El mismo embajador de Inglaterra, un inglés reseco en el
protocolo, con un bigote usado, como uno de esos cepillos de
dientes que se utilizan para embetunar los botines, en vez de
aceptar la copa de champagne que le brindaban, se arrodilló en
medio del salón para olfatear las flores de la alfombra, y después
de aproximarse a un pedestal, levantó la pata como un perro.
[10]
y ou couIdn't hear a sound, not even a faint rattling of chains.
The bottles stood still, showing no desire to move from the
spot. The day after a button was put on the table you found
it still in the same place. The wine and the portraits were
gaining dignity with age. You couId shave in any mirror with-
out fear of running a cut all the way to your carotid; but no
sooner had the first guests rung the bell and stepped into the
vestibule than they began to commit the most outlandish incivi-
lities, each of these unpardonable disturbances driving us
dangerously close to an unintended suicide.
During the act of proffering their calling cards, for example, the
visitors fumbled so clumsily that they al! but climbed out of
their trousers, and they proceeded into the salon with their
shirttails flapping around their navels. As they carnein to greet
their hostess, some irresistible force compelled them to blow
their noses on the curtains, and when they wanted to inquire
about her husband, they asked about his false teeth instead.
Even with the fiercest application of willpower, no one couId
overcome the temptation to repeat "holy cow!" each time
someone referred to the young ladies of the house; and when
the latter offered them a cup of tea, the guests climbed up into
the chandeliers to restrain their desire to bite at their calves.
Even the British ambassador, an Englishman steeped in proto-
col and sporting a well-worn mustache, like one of those tooth-
brushes one uses to blacken one's boots, did not accept the
bumper of champagne offered him, but instead knelt down in
the middle of the salon in order to smell the flowers printed on
the carpet; then, after sidling up alongside a pedestal, he lifted
his hind leg like a dogo
[11]

Nunca he dejado de llevar la vida humilde que puede permitirse
un modesto empleado de correos. ¡Pues! mi mujer - que tiene
la manía de pensar en voz alta y de decir todo 10 que le pasa
por la cabeza - se empeña en atribuirme los destinos más
absurdos que pueden imaginarse.
Ahora mismo, mientras leía los diarios de la tarde, me preguntó
sin ninguna clase de preámbulos:
"¿Por qué no abandonaste el gato yel hogar? ¡Ha de ser tan
lindo embarcarse en una fragatal., Durante las noches de luna,
los marineros se reúnen sobre cubierta. Algunos tocan el acor-
deón, otros acarician una mujer de goma. Tú fumas la pipa en
compañía de un amigo. El mar te ha endurecido las pupilas.
Has visto demasiados atardeceres. ¿Con qué puerto, con qué
ciudad no te has acostado alguna noche? ¿Las velas serán
capaces de brindarte un horizonte nuevo? Un día en que la
calma ya es una maldición, bajas a tu cucheta, desanudas un
.,.. pañuelo de seda, te ahorcas con una trenza de mujer."
y no contenta con hacerme navegar por todo el mundo,
cuando hace diez y seis años que estoy anclado en el correo:
"¿Recuerdas las que tenía cuando me conociste?.. En ese
tiempo me imaginaba que serías soldado y mis pezones se
incendiaban al pensar que tendrías un pecho aspero, como un
felpudo.
[12]
4
The only life 1 had ever known was the humble one afforded
me by my position as an employee of the post office. So my
wife, who has a manía for thinking out loud and saying the
first thing that pops into her head, took it upon herself to
assign me fortunes more absurd than any you would ever
lmagme.
I Out of the blue, while reading the evening papers, she tumed
to me and asked, without preliminaries:
"Why didn't you give up the house and the cat? It would have
been so niee to take a cruise on a frigate!... During the moonlit
nights, the sailors gather on deck beneath the outspread sails.
Some play the accordion, others fondle a rubber woman. You
,
smoke your pipe with a mate. The sea has hardened your pu-
pils. Y ou have seen it all, Is there any port, is there any city
where you have not spent the night? Does there yet remain
some undiscovered horizon towards which the sails may loft
you? One day when the calm has become a curse, you will go
down to your bunk, untie your silk kerchief and hang yourself
with a woman's pigtail."
And not content with having me circumnavigate the globe,
even though I've been at anchor in the post office for more
than seventeen years:
"Do you remember the braids 1 had when you first met me? ..
At that time 1 imagined that you would become a soldier, and
my nipples caught fire at the thought that you would have a
rugged, hairy chest, like a doormat.
[13]
 "Eras fuerte. Escalaste los muros de un monasterio. Te
acostaste con la abadesa. La dejaste preñada. ¿A qué tiempo,
a qué nación pertenece tu historia? ... Te has jugado la vida
tantas veces, que posees un olor a barajas usadas. ¡Con qué
avidez, con qué ternura yo te besaba las heridas! Eras brutal.
Eras taciturno. Te gustaban los quesos que saben a verija de
sátiro... y la primera noche, al poseerme, me destrozaste el
espi~azo en el respaldo de la cama."
y como me dispusiera a demostrarle que lejos de cometer esas
barbaridades, no he ambicionado, durante toda mi existencia,
más que ingresar en el Club Social de Vélez Sársfield:
"Ahora te veo arrodillado en una iglesia con olor a bodega.
"Mírate las manos; sólo sirven para hojear misales. Tu
humildad es tan grande que te avergüenzas de tu pureza, de tu
sabiduría. Te hincas a cada instante para besar las hojas que se
quejan y que suspiran. Cuando una mujer te mira, bajas los
párpados y te sientes desnudo. Tu sudor es grato a las
prostitutas y a los perros. Te gusta caminar, con fiebre, bajo la
lluvia. Te gusta acostarte, en pleno campo, a mirar las
.n estrellas ...
"Una noche - en que te hallas con Dios - entras en un
establo, sin que nadie te vea, y te estiras sobre la paja, para
morir abrazado al pescuezo de alguna vaca..."
[14]
y ou were strong. You scaled the walls of the convento You
went to bed with the abbess. You left her pregnant. To what
time, to what place, does a story like yours belong? ... You
have played the game of life so many times that you have the
smell of a worn deck of cards. With what eagerness, with what
tenderness 1 kissed your wounds! You were savage! You were
silent! You liked cheeses that tasted like a satyr's groin ... and
the first night, when you possessed me, you broke my spine
against the backboard of the bed."
And before 1 could prove just how far 1 was from perpetrating
these barbarities, that 1 aspired to nothing greater, during my
entire lifetime, than gaining admission to the Vélez-Sársfield
Country Club:
"Now 1 see you kneeling in a church with the smell of a wine
cellar.
"Look at your hands; they are good for nothing but turning
the pages of missals. Your meekness is so great that you are
ashamed of your purity, of your prudence. You fall on your
knees at every moment to kiss the pages that sigh and com-
plain. When a woman looks at you, you lower your eyelids
and feel naked and ashamed. Your sweat is pleasing to prosti-
tutes and dogs. You like to walk feverish through the rain.
you like to lie down in an open field and gaze up at the stars ...
"One night - in which you come face to face with God-
you will enter a stable without being seen and stretch out on
the straw, so as to die with your arms around the neck of sóme
old cow ... "
[15]
 11 11
Si .h~biera sospechado 10 que se oye después de muerto, no me Jfl'd had the slightest inkling of what 1 was going to hear after
SUICIdo.
eath, 1 would never have committed suicide.

~p.enas se desvanece la musiquita que nos echó a perder los

carcely has the bit of music that spoils our final moments
ultlI~oS mom~ntos y cerramos los ojos para dormir la
begun to fade and we close our eyes to sleep for all eternity
etermdad, empIezan las discusiones y las escenas de familia.
than the arguments and family scenes begin.

¡Qué desconocimiento de las formas! ¡Qué carencia absoluta de

What disregard for good form! What absolute lack of com-
compostura! ¡Qué ignorancia de lo que es bien morir!
posure! What ignorance of what it means to die well!

Ni un conventillo de calabreses malcasados, en plena catástrofe

A tenement house full of ill-wed Calabrians in full conjugal
conyugal, daría una noción aproximada de las bataholas que se
producen a cada instante. catastrophe couldn'r give even an approximate notion of the
hurly-burly produced every momento
Mi~ntras algún vecino patalea dentro de su cajón, los de alIado
Wrule some neighbor kicks around inside rus casket, those next
se Insultan como carreros, y al mismo tiempo que resuena un
door trade insults like truck drivers, and at the same time that
estruendo a mudanza, se oyen las carcajadas de los que habitan
en la tumba de enfrente. something moves and clatters, peals of laughter emerge from
those who inhabit the tomb in front.
C~alquier cadáver se considera con el derecho de manifestar a
Some cadaver considers it rus right to make known at the top
gr~tos l~s deseos que había logrado reprimir durante toda su
of rus lungs desires that he had successfu11y rep~ess:d duri~g rus
eXIsten:Ia de ciudadano, y no Contento con enteramos de sus
entire existence as a citizen, and, not content with informing us
:nezqumdades, de sus infamias, a los cinco minutos de hallarnos
of rus every meanness and infamy, within five minutes of our
Instalados en nuestro nicho, .nos interioriza de lo que opinan
being installed in our niche he makes us privy to the thoughts
sobre nosotros todos los habitanres del cementerio.
and opinions that all the other inhabitants of the cemetery have
about uso
I?~ na~a ,sir:veque nos tapemos las orejas. Los comentarios, las
risrtas ironrcas, los cascotes que caen de no se sabe dónde, nos
It is useless to plug up your ears. The cornments, the sarcastic
atormentan en tal forma los minutos del día y del insomnio
snickers the rubble that falls from who knows where so tor-
que nos dan ganas de suicidarnos nueVamente. '
ment us' at every moment of the day and insomniac night that
it's enough to make us want to commit suicide all over again.

[381
[39]
Aunque parezca mentira - esas humillaciones - ese continuo
estruendo resulta mil veces preferible a los momentos de calma
y de silencio.
Por lo común, éstos sobrevienen con una brusquedad de sín-
cope. De pronto, sin el menor indicio, caemos en el vacío.
Imposible asirse a alguna cosa, encontrar una asperosidad a que
aferrarse. La caída no tiene término. El silencio hace sonar su
diapas6n. La atmósfera se rarifica cada vez más, y el menor rui-
dito: una uña, un cartílago que se cae, la falange de un dedo
que se desprende, retumba, se amplifica, choca y rebota en los
obstáculos que encuentra, se amalgama con todos los ecos que
persisten; y cuando parece que ya se va a extinguir, y cerramos
los ojos despacito para que no se oiga ni el roce de nuestros pár-
~ados, resuena un nuevo ruido que nos espanta el sueño para
SIempre.
¡Ah, si yo hubiera sabido que la muerte es un país donde no se
puede vivir!
[40]
Although it may be hard to believe - these humiliations -
this continual clatter proves to be a thousand times more pre-
ferable to the moments of silence and calmo
Usually they occur with the suddenness of a swoon. All at
once, without the slightest warning, we tumble into the void.
It's impossible to latch onto anything, to find anything rough
or protruding to grabo The fall has no end. Silence lets its
amplitude sound. The atmosphere gets more rarefied moment
by moment, and the least noise - a fingernail, a bit of
sloughed cartilage, a phalange that comes loose from a finger -
resounds, is amplified, bumps and rebounds as it encounters
obstacles on its way, and is amalgamated with all the other
persisting echoes; and when it seems that finally it is going to
fade out, and we close our eyes gently to avoid hearing the frie-
tion of our eye1ids, there arises a new noise to scare us out of
our sleep forever.
Ah, if only l' d known that death is a country where no one
can live!
[41]
 2.0
Con frecuencia voy a visitar a un pariente que vive en los
alrededores, :Al pasar por alguna de las estaciones - ¡no falla
ID por casualídad! - el tren salta sobre el andén, arrasa los
equipajes, derrumba boletería, el comedor. Los vagones se
trepan los unos sobre los otros. El furgón se acopla con la
locom~tora. ~o hay más que piernas y brazos por todas par-
tes: bajo los asientos, entre los durmientes de la vía, sobre las
redes donde se colocan las valijas.
De mi compartimento sólo queda un pedazo de puerta. Echo
a un lado los cadáveres que me rodean. Rectifico la latitud de
mi corbata, y salgo, 10 más campante, sin una arruga en el
pantalón o en la sonrisa.
Aunque preveo lo que sucederá, otras veces me embarco, con
la esperanza de que mis presentimientos resulten inexactos.
Los pasajeros son los mismos de siempre. Está el marido adúl-
t~ro, con ~ sonrisa de padrillo. Está la señorita cuyos atrae-
trvos se conzan en proporción directa al alejamiento de la costa.
Está la señora foca, la señora tonina; el fabricante de artículos
de goma, que apoyado sobre la borda contempla la inmensidad
del mar y 10 único que se le ocurre es escupirlo.
Al tercer día de navegar se oye - ¡en plena noche! _ un
estruendo metálico, intestinal.
¡Mujeres semidesnudas! ¡Hombres en camiseta!· [Llantos!
¡Plegarias! ¡Gritos!... .
166]
2.0
Often 1 go to visit a relative who lives ou~de of ~own. .While
passing through one of the stations - u certainly did not
happen by chance! - the train jump~d over ~he platform, de-
molished the baggage, wiped out the ticket offIce and the snack
sh op. The cars stacked up one on top of the other. dIThe
boxear coupled onto the locomotive. There were ~ an egs
everywhere: under the seats, along the tracks, up ID the nets
for the luggage.
Of my compartment all that remains is a splinter from the
door. 1 shove to one side the cadavers that surround me. 1
straighten my tie and step outside, ~ cheerful. as you please,
without a wrinkle in my trousers or ID my smile.
Although 1 foresee everything that will happen, 1 have
embarked on more than one such journey in the hope that my
premonitions will prove mistaken ...
The passengers were the same as alwa~s ', Ther~ was the adul-
terous husband with his pious, patromzing smile. There ~as
the young lady whose charms are priced in direct proportion
to your distance from the coast. There was the seal w?man,
the tuna woman; the manufacturer of rubber ~oods leaning on
the guard rail and contemplating th~ immensity of the o~e~,
which seems to inspire him only with the thought of spitnng
on rt,
On the third day of the voyage there was heard - in the
middle of the night! - a metallic, intestinal screech.
Half-naked women! Men in their nightshirts! Tears! Prayers!
Screams!
[67]
Mientras los pasajeros se estrangulan al asaltar los botes de
salvamento, yo aprovecho un bandazo para zambullirme desde
la cubierta, y ya en el mar, contemplo - con impasibilidad de
corcho - el espectáculo.
¡Horror! El buque cabecea, tiembla, hunde la proa y se
sumerge.
¿Tendré que convencerme una vez más que soy el único sobre-
viviente?
Con la intención de comprobarlo, inspecciono el sitio del nau-
fragio. Aquí un salvavidas, una silla de mimbre... Allá un
cardumen de tiburones, un cadáver flotante...
Calculo el rumbo, la distancia, y después de batir todos los
récores del mundo, entro, el octavo día, en el puerto de
desembarque.
Mis amigos, la gente que me conoce, las personas que saben de
cuántas catástrofes me he librado, supusieron, en el primer
momento, que era una simple casualidad, pero al comprobar
que la casualidad se repetía demasiado, terminaron por consi-
derarla una costumbre, sin darse cuenta que se trata de una
verdadera predestinación.
Así como hay hombres cuya sola presencia resulta de una efi-
cacia abortiva indiscutible, la mía provoca accidentes a cada
paso, ayuda al azar y rompe el equilibrio inestable de que
depende la existencia.
¡Con qué angustia, con qué ansiedad comprobé, durante los pri-
meros tiempos, está propensión al cataclismo!... ¡La vida se
complica cuando se hallan escombros a cada paso!... [Pero es tal
la fuerza de la costumbre!'" Insensiblemente uno se habitúa a
vivir entre cadáveres desmenuzados y entre vidrios rotos, hasta
[68]
As the passengers strangled one another clawing their way to
the lifeboats, 1 managed to reach an inflatable raft, dove under
its tarpaulin cover and, already in the sea, surveyed - with the
impassiveness of a cork - the unfolding spectacle.
It was a horrible sight! The ship pitched, shuddered, nosed
under at the prow and slipped beneath the waves.
Did 1 have to convince myself one more time that 1 was the
only survivor?
So as to be sure, 1 inspected the site of the shipwreck. Here
was a lifesaver, a wicker chair... there a school of sharks, a
bobbing cadaver...
1 calculated the distance, set a course and, after beating a11
world records, entered, on the eighth day, the port of disem-
barkation.
My friends, those who knew how many similar debacles 1 had
been spared before, surmised at first that what had happened
was a simple accident, but, having to admit that these accidents
happened so often, to the point of seeming routine, fina11yhad
to treat it as a case of authentic predestination.
Just as there are men ,:hose pres.ence exerts .an un~rring
abortive efficacy, my special faculty is for provoking accidents
at every turn, for helping along unforeseen calamity and up-
sening the unstable equilibrium on which all existence depends.
With what anguish, with what anxiety did 1 confront, in those
first days, this propensity for cataclysm!... Life gets compli-
cated when it trips over wreckage at every step!". But the force
of habit is invincible... Without noticing, one eventually be-
comes accustomed to living among disintegrating cadavers and
[69]
que se descubre el encanto de las inundaciones, de los derrum-
bamientos, y se ve que la vida solo adquiere color en medio de
la desolación y del desastre.
¡Saber que basta nuestra presencia para que las cariátides se
cansen de sosten~r los edificios públicos y fallezcan - entre sus
capiteles, entre sus expedientes - centenares de prestamistas,
que se alimentaban de empleados ... ¡públicos!... y de garbanzos!
¡Saborear - como si fuese mazamorra - los temblores que
provoca nuestra mirada; esos terremotos en los que las
bañaderas se arrojan desde el octavo piso, mientras perecen
enjauladas en los ascensores, docenas de vendedoras rubias, y
que sin embargo se llamaban Esther!
¿Verdad que ante la magnificencia de tales espectáculos, pierden
todo atractivo hasta los paisajes de montañas, mucho mejor for-
madas que las nalgas de la Venus de Milo?
El exotismo de las mariposas o de los mastodontes, los ritos de
la masonería o de la masticación - al menos en 10 que a mí se
refieren - no consiguen interesarme. Necesito esqueletos pul-
verizados, decapitaciones ferroviarias, descuartizamientos
inidentificables, y es tan grande mi amor por 10 espectacular,
que el día en que no provoco ningún cortocircuito, sufro una
verdadera desilusión.
En estas c~ndiciones, mi compañía resultará lo intranquilizadora
que se qUiera.
¿Tengo yo alguna culpa en preferir las quemaduras a las cole-
gialas de tercer grado?
[70]
shattered glass, even to the point of discovering the enchant-
ments of floods, the delights of structural collapses, and soon
one feels that life acquires color only in the midst of desolation
and disaster. -
Note that our mere appearance on the scene is enough to cause
caryatids to weary of holding up public edifices and thus to
cause the downfall - among their crumbling columns of
figures, among their portfolios - of hundreds of moneylenders,
who feed on the body politic ... and on garbanzo beans!
Learn to relish - as if they were delicious plates of boiled
maize - the temblors that fill us with awe, earthquakes in
which bathtubs sprink1e from the eighth floor while dozens of
salesgirls are trapped and perish in the e1evators, and though
blonde are still called Estherl
Who can deny that before the magnificence of such spectacles
mountain landscapes lose a1ltheir appeal, even if they are better
shaped than the buttocks of the Venus de Milo?
The exoticism of moths or mastodons, the rites of masonry or
mastication - at least as far as I'm concemed ;- hold not the
slightest interest. 1need pulverized skeletons, railroad decapita-
tions, unidentifiable corpses drawn-and-quartered, and so great
is my love for the spectacular that the day on which it doesn't
produce in me a short circuit, 1 will expire from sheer dis-
illusionment.
Under such conditions, my company would be as uncertain as
uncertain can be.
Am 1 to blame if 1 prefer conflagrations to third-grade school-
girls?
[71]
Aunque la mayoría de los hombres se satisfaga con rumiar el
sueño y la vigilia con una impasibilidad de cornudo, quien haya
pernoctado entre cadáveres vagabundos comprenderá que el
resto me parezca melaza, nada más que melaza.
Yo soy - ¡qué le vamos a hacer! - un hombre catastrófico y
I • ,
asr como no puedo dOI1DJ.rantes que se derrumben, sobre mi
cama, los bienes y los cuerpos de los que habitan en los pisos
de arriba, no logro interesarme por ninguna mujer, si no me
consta, que al estrecharla entre mis brazos, ha de declararse un
incendio en el que perezca carbonizada... ¡la pobrecita!
[72]
Although most men satisfy themselves with musing on their
dreams and waking with the submissiveness of a cuckold, he
who has pernoctated among vagabond cadavers will compre-
hend that the rest seems so much molasses, nothing but
molasses.
1am - and what can 1do? - a catastrophic man, and 1cannot
sleep unless 1 can hear the rumblings above my bed of the
bodies and the belongings of those living on the floors above,
and I'm not interested in any woman, if 1haven't already made
this clear, unless, as she lies outstretched in my arms, she sets
herself on fire in a blazing conflagration in which she is car-
bonized to ash ... poor thingl
[73]
OLIVERIO GIRONDO (189i-1967) was bom into a wealthy
family in Buenos Aires. He studied for law, but did not practice
it, preferring to experiment in literature. His chief publications
are Veinte poemas para ser leídos en la tranvía (Twenty Poems
To Be Read on the Streetcar, 1922), Calcomanías (Decals, 1925),
Espanatapájaros (Scarecrow, 1932), Interlunio (Lunarlude, 1937),
Persuación de los días (persuasion of the Days, 1942) and Campo
nuestro (Our Countryside, 1946), the last two being collections
of poetry. This iconoclastic body of work is well represented
in the present translation. His last book is the untranslatable
En la másmedula (Into the Moremarrow, 1954), poetry at the
far reaches of the mind. Girondo travelled widely and associ-
ated with avant-garde writers in Europe and Latin America.
He founded the journal Martín Fierro in 1923, which ran for
twenty-six years. At its close, he established the Martín Fierro
Award to support young writers. He and wife Norah Lange
hosted a literary salon in the capital and presided as patrons of
Argentine arts and letters unti11964, when he was injured in a
car accident. A generous man, Oliverio Girondo greatly bene-
fitted the cause of imaginative literature in Argentina. Citation
of bis works in the film The Dark Side o/ the Heart (1994)
created a sensation in Argentina and brought him belated world
fame.
[190]
GILBERT ALTER-GILBERT is a translator, critic and literary
explorer. Among his translations are Tbe Mirror o/ Lida Sal:
Tales Based on Mayan Myths & Guatemalan Legends by Miguel
Angel Asturias (Latin American Literary Review Press, 1997);
Manifestos Manifest, from the French, by Vicente Huidobro
(Sun & Moon Press, 1999); and Strange Forces: Tbe Fantastic
Tales o/ Leopoldo Lugones (Latin American Literary Review,
2001). He is the editor of Life and Limb: Selected Tales o/ Peril,
Predicament and Dire Distress (Hi Jinx Press, 1996) and has
several other anthologies in the offmg. He writes art criticism
and essays in literary esoterica, and serves as a consultant for
Xenos Books. His next translation with Xenos will be On a
Locomotive & other runaway stories by Massimo Bontempelli.
California bom and bred, Alter-Gilbert ventures far and wide,
usually in a foreign automobile, but continues to reside in the
Golden State, where he maintains one of the most distinctive
private collections of literary memorabilia on the Pacific Coast.
A master of disguises, he delights in making unexpected appear-
ances and unnoticed disappearances, leaving behind magnetic
mummies and historie illustrations of the seven vices.
KARL KVITK.O was bom in an area of the Blue Ridge Moun-
tains to a woman of Ukrainian or Irish descent. His Germanic
father, a zookeeper, disappeared on an extended expedition in
very wet terrain. Kvitko, raised in an orphanage, first took an
interest in snakes, then languages and literatures. Eventually he
studied Russian and specialized in espionage. Most of his
works appear in another language under an official cryptonym.
In 1985, convinced that the big publishers hated real literature,
written, as Yevgeny Zamyatin observed, "not by efficient and
trustworthy clerks, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dream-
ers, rebels, skeptics," he founded Xenos Books, taking for its
name the Greek word that means both "stranger" and "guest."
Everyone involved with the press matches at least one of
Zamyatin' s specifications.
[191]